TI 
HIGH 

AVID    .STARR 


THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


HE  HIGHER 
SACRIFICE 


BY 


DAVID  STARR  JORDAN    ; 

»      r  / 


PRESIDENT   OF 
LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY 


BOSTON 

AMERICAN  UNITARIAN  ASSOCIATION 
1908 


•  r 


Copyright,  1908 
By  the  American  Unitarian  Association 


The  Heintzemann  Press,  Boston,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


*-t    ^     to  '0*-  V 

Bancroft  Libra? 


JSDOM  too  great  to  be 
translated  into  action  is 
a  contradiction  of  words. 
For  wisdom  is  only  knowing  what 
one  ought  to  do  next.  Virtue  is 
doing  it.  Virtue  and  enjoyment 
have  never  been  far  apart  from  each 
other.  To  know  and  to  do  is  the 
basis  of  the  highest  service.  Those 
the  world  has  the  right  to  honor 
are  those  who  have  found  enough 
to  do.  The  fields  are  always  white 
to  their  harvest. 


£ 


THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE. 

ACH  man  that  lives  is, 
in  part,  a  slave,  because 
he  is  a  living  being. 
This  belongs  to  the 
definition  of  life  itself.  Each  crea- 
ture must  bend  its  back  to  the  lash 
of  its  environment.  We  imagine  life 
without  conditions  —  life  free  from 
the  pressure  of  insensate  things  out- 
side us  or  within.  But  such  life  is  the 
dream  of  the  philosopher.  We  have 
never  known  it.  The  records  of  the 
life  we  know  are  full  of  concessions 
to  such  pressure. 

The  vegetative  part  of  life,  that 


THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

part  which  finds  its  expression  in 
physical  growth,  and  sustenance, 
and  death,  must  always  be  slavery. 
The  old  primal  hunger  of  the  pro- 
toplasm rules  over  it  all.  Each  of 
the  myriad  cells  or  centres  of  energy 
of  which  man  is  made  must  be  fed 
and  cared  for.  The  perennial  hunger 
of  these  cells  he  must  stifle.  This 
hunger  began  when  life  began.  It 
will  cease  only  when  life  ceases.  It 
will  last  till  the  water  of  the  sea  is 
drained,  the  great  lights  are  put  out, 
and  the  useless  earth  is  hungup  empty 
in  the  archives  of  the  universe. 
This  old  hunger  the  individual 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

man  must  each  day  meet  and  satisfy. 
He  must  do  this  for  himself;  else, 
in  the  long  run,  it  will  not  be  done. 
If  others  help  feed  him,  he  must  feed 
others  in  return.  This  return  is  not 
charity  nor  sacrifice ;  it  is  simply  ex- 
change of  work.  It  is  the  division  of 
labor  in  servitude.  Directly  or  indi- 
rectly, each  must  pay  his  debt  of  life. 
There  are  a  few,  as  the  world  goes, 
who  in  luxury  or  pauperism  have 
this  debt  paid  for  them  by  others. 
But  there  are  not  many  of  these  fu- 
gitive slaves.  The  number  will  never 
be  great ;  for  the  lineage  of  idleness 
is  never  long  nor  strong.  A  student 


10  THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

once  asked  an  Australian  professor 
why  the  judgments  of  the  Lord 
were  visited  to  the  third  and  fourth 
generation  —  not  to  the  seventh  or 
eighth.  This  was  his  answer:  "  Be- 
cause there  is  no  seventh  or  eighth 
generation  in  the  lineage  of  evil.  It 
never  goes  beyond  the  fourth."  It  is 
only  the  strong,  the  clean,  the  wise 
which  count  in  survival. 

When  this  debt  of  life  is  paid, 
the  slave  becomes  the  man.  Nature 
counts  as  men  only  those  who  are 
free.  Freedom  springs  from  within. 
No  outside  power  can  give  it.  Board 
and  lodging  on  the  earth  once  paid, 


THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE  11 

a  man's  resources  are  his  own.  These 
he  can  give  or  hold.  By  the  fullness 
of  these  is  he  measured.  All  acqui- 
sitions of  man,  Emerson  tells  us,  "are 
victories  of  the  good  brain  and  brave 
heart ;  the  world  belongs  to  the  en- 
ergetic, belongs  to  the  wise.  It  is  in 
vain  to  make  a  paradise  but  for  good 


men/ 


In  the  ancient  lore  of  the  He- 
brews, so  Rabbi  Voorsanger  tells  us, 
it  is  written,  "  Serve  the  Lord,  not 
as  slaves  hoping  for  reward,  but  as 
gods  who  will  take  no  reward."  The 
meaning  of  the  old  saying  is  this : 
Only  the  gods  can  serve. 


12  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


Those  who  have  nothing  have 
nothing  to  give.  He  who  serves  as  a 
slave  serves  himself  only.  That  he 
hopes  for  a  reward  shows  that  to  him- 
self his  service  is  really  given.  To 
serve  the  Lord,  according  to  another 
old  saying,  is  to  help  one's  fellow- 
men.  The  Eternal  asks  not  of  mor- 
tals that  they  assist  Him  with  His 
earth.  The  tough  old  world  has  been 
His  for  centuries  of  centuries  before 
it  came  to  be  ours,  and  we  can  neither 
make  it  nor  mar  it.  We  were  not  con- 
sulted when  its  foundations  were  laid 
in  the  deep.  The  waves  and  the 
storms,  the  sunshine  and  the  song  of 


THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  13 


birds  need  not  our  aid.  They  will 
take  care  of  themselves.  Life  is  the 
only  material  that  is  plastic  in  our 
hand.  Only  man  can  be  helped  by 
man. 

When  they  hung  John  Brown  in 
Virginia,  many  said,  you  remember, 
that  in  resisting  the  Government  he 
had  thrown  away  his  life,  and  would 
gain  nothing  for  it.  He  could  not,  as 
Thoreau  said  at  the  time,  get  a  vote 
of  thanks  or  a  pair  of  boots  for  his 
life.  "  He  could  not  get  four-and- 
sixpence  a  day  for  being  hung,  take 
the  year  around/'  But  he  was  not 
asking  for  a  vote  of  thanks.  It  was  not 


14  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

for  the  four-and-sixpence  a  day  that 
he  stood  between  brute  force  and  its 
victims.  It  was  to  show  men  the  na- 
ture of  slavery.  It  was  to  help  his 
fellow-citizens  to  read  the  story  of 
their  institutions  in  the  light  of  his- 
tory. "  You  can  get  more/'  Thoreau 
went  on  to  say,  "  in  your  market  (at 
Concord)  for  a  quart  of  milk  than 
you  can  for  a  quart  of  blood ;  but 
yours  is  not  the  market  heroes  carry 
their  blood  to."  The  blood  of  heroes 
is  not  sold  by  the  quart.  The  great, 
strong,  noble,  and  pure  of  this  world, 
those  who  have  made  our  race  worthy 
to  be  called  men,  have  not  been  paid 


THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  15 


by  the  day  or  by  the  quart ;  not  by 
riches,  nor  fame,  nor  power,  nor  any- 
thing that  man  can  give.  Out  of  the 
fullness  of  their  lives  have  they  served 
the  Lord.  Out  of  the  wealth  of  their 
resources  have  they  helped  their  fel- 
lowmen. 

The  great  man  cannot  be  a  self- 
seeker.  The  greatness  of  a  Napoleon 
or  of  an  Alexander  is  the  greatness 
of  gluttony.  It  is  slavery  on  a  grand 
scale.  What  men  have  done  for  their 
own  glory  or  aggrandizement  has 
left  no  permanent  impress.  "  I  have 
carried  out  nothing/'  says  the  war- 
rior, Sigurd  Slembe.  "  I  have  not 


16  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


sown  the  least  grain  nor  laid  one 
stone  upon  another  to  witness  that 
I  have  lived/*  Napoleon  could  have 
said  as  much,  if,  like  Sigurd,  he  had 
stood  "upon  his  own  grave  and  heard 
the  great  bell  ring."  The  tragedy  of 
the  Isle  of  St.  Helena  lay  not  in  the 
failure  of  effort,  the  collapse  of  em- 
pire, but  in  the  futility  of  the  aim 
to  which  effort  was  directed.  There 
was  no  tragedy  of  the  Isle  of  Patmos. 
The  scenes  at  Harper's  Ferry  will 
not  be  recorded  in  final  history  as 
tragedy. 

What  such  men  as  Napoleon  have 
torn  down  remains  torn  down.  All 


a 

THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  17 


this  would  soon  have  fallen  of  itself ; 
for  that  which  has  life  in  it  cannot  be 
destroyed  by  force.  But  what  such 
men  have  built  has  fallen  when  their 
hands  have  ceased  to  hold  it  up.  The 
names  history  cherishes  are  those  of 
men  of  another  type.  Only  "a  man 
too  simply  great  to  scheme  for  his 
proper  self "  is  great  enough  to  be- 
come a  pillar  of  the  ages. 

It  is  a  part  of  the  duty  of  higher 
education  to  build  up  ideals  of  noble 
freedom.  It  is  not  mainly  for  help  in 
the  vegetative  work  of  life  that  you 
go  to  college.  You  are  just  as  good 
a  slave  without  it.  You  can  earn  your 


18  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


board  and  lodging  without  the  for- 
mality of  culture.  The  training  of 
the  college  will  make  your  power 
for  action  greater,  no  doubt ;  but  it 
will  also  magnify  your  needs.  The 
debt  of  life  a  scholar  has  to  pay  is 
greater  than  that  paid  by  the  clown. 
And  the  higher  sacrifice  the  scholar 
may  be  called  upon  to  make  grows 
with  the  increased  fullness  of  his  life. 
Greater  needs  go  with  greater  power, 
and  both  mean  greater  opportunity 
for  sacrifice. 

In  the  days  you  have  been  with 
us  you  should  have  formed  some 
ideals.  You  should  have  bound  these 


THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE  19 

ideals  together  with  the  chain  of 
"well-spent  yesterdays,"  the  higher 
heredity  which  comes  not  from  your 
ancestors,  but  which  each  man  must 
build  up  for  himself.  You  should 
have  done  something  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  life  of  higher  sacrifice, 
the  life  that  from  the  fullness  of  its 
resources  can  have  something  to 
give. 

Such  sacrifice  is  not  waste,  but 
service;  not  spending,  but  accom- 
plishing. Many  men,  and  more 
women,  spend  their  lives  for  others 
when  others  would  have  been  better 
served  if  they  had  spared  themselves. 


20  THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

Mere  giving  is  not  service.  "  Char- 
ity that  is  irrational  and  impulsive 
giving,  is  a  waste,  whether  of  money 
or  of  life."  "  Charity  creates  half  the 
misery  she  relieves;  she  cannot  re- 
lieve half  the  misery  she  creates." 

The  men  you  meet  as  you  leave 
these  halls  will  not  understand  your 
ideals.  They  will  not  know  that  your 
life  is  not  bound  up  in  the  present, 
but  has  something  to  ask  or  to  give 
for  the  future.  Till  they  understand 
you  they  will  not  yield  you  their 
sympathies.  They  may  jeer  at  you 
because  the  whip  they  respond  to 
leaves  no  mark  upon  you.  They  will 


THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  21 


try  to  buy  you,  because  the  Devil 
has  always  bid  high  for  the  lives  of 
young  men  with  ideals.  A  man  in 
his  market  stands  always  above  par. 
Slaves  are  his  stock  in  trade.  If  a  man 
of  power  can  be  had  for  base  pur- 
poses, he  can  be  sure  of  an  imme- 
diate reward.  You  can  sell  your 
blood  for  its  weight  in  milk,  or  for 
its  weight  in  gold  —  whatever  you 
choose, — if  you  are  willing  to  put 
it  up  for  sale.  You  can  sell  your  will 
for  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth ;  and 
you  will  see,  or  seem  to  see,  many 
of  your  associates  making  just  such 
bargains.  But  in  this  be  not  deceived. 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

No  young  man  worthy  of  anything 
else  ever  sold  himself  to  the  Devil. 
These  are  dummy  sales.  The  Devil 
puts  his  own  up  at  auction  in  hope  of 
catching  others.  If  you  fall  into  his 
hands,  you  had  not  far  to  fall.  You 
were  already  ripe  for  his  clutches. 
When  a  man  steps  forth  from  the 
college,  he  is  tested  once  for  all.  It 
takes  but  a  year  or  two  to  prove  his 
mettle.  In  the  college  high  ideals 
prevail,  and  the  intellectual  life  is 
taken  as  a  matter  of  course.  In  the 
world  outside  it  appears  otherwise, 
though  the  conditions  of  success  are 
in  fact  just  the  same.  It  is  not  true, 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE  23 

though  it  seems  so,  that  the  com- 
mon life  is  a  game  of"  grasping  and 
griping,  with  a  whine  for  mercy  at 
the  end  of  it."  It  is  your  own  fault 
if  you  find  it  so.  It  is  not  true  that 
the  whole  of  man  is  occupied  with 
the  effort  "  to  live  just  asking  but  to 
live,  to  live  just  begging  but  to  be." 
The  world  of  thought  and  the  world 
of  action  are  one  in  nature.  In  both 
truth  and  love  are  strength,  and  folly 
and  selfishness  are  weakness.  There 
is  no  confusion  of  right  and  wrong 
in  the  mind  of  the  Fates.  It  is  only 
in  our  poor  bewildered  slave  intel- 
lects that  evil  passes  for  power.  All 


24  THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

about  us  in  the  press  of  life  are  real 
men,  "whose  fame  is  not  bought 
nor  sold  at  the  stroke  of  a  politician's 
pen."  Such  are  the  men  in  whose 
guidance  the  currents  of  history  flow. 
The  work  of  the  world  is  not  accom- 
plished anonymously.  It  is  the  work 
of  living  men,  each  true  to  the  best 
light  of  his  generation.  The  masses 
of  men  —  "  men  with  guano  in  their 
composition"  —  do  not  make  his- 
tory. It  goes  on  in  spite  of  them.  Its 
events  pass  over  their  heads. 

The  lesson  of  values  in  life  it 
should  be  yours  to  teach,  because  it 
should  be  yours  to  know  and  to  act. 


THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  25 

Men  are  better  than  they  seem,  and 
the  hidden  virtues  of  life  appear 
when  men  have  learned  how  to  trans- 
late them  into  action.  Men  grasp 
and  hoard  material  things  because  in 
their  poverty  of  soul  they  know  of 
nothing  else  to  do.  It  is  lack  of  train- 
ing and  lack  of  imagination,  rather 
than  total  depravity,  which  gives  our 
social  life  its  sordid  aspect.  When  a 
plant  has  learned  the  secret  of  flow- 
ers and  fruit,  it  no  longer  goes  on 
adding  meaningless  leaf  on  leaf.  And 
as  "  flowers  are  only  colored  leaves, 
fruits  only  ripe  ones,"  so  are  the  vir- 
tues only  perfected  and  ripened 


26  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


forms  of  those  impulses  which  un- 
directed may  show  themselves  as 
vices. 

It  is  your  relation  to  the  overflow 
of  power  that  determines  the  man- 
ner of  man  you  are.  Slave  or  god,  it 
is  for  you  to  choose.  Slave  or  god,  it 
is  for  you  to  will.  It  is  for  such  choice 
that  will  is  developed.  Say  what  we 
may  about  the  limitations  of  the  life 
of  man,  they  are  largely  self-limita- 
tions. Hemmed  in  is  human  life  by 
the  force  of  the  Fates  ;  but  the  will 
of  man  is  one  of  the  Fates,  and  can 
take  its  place  by  the  side  of  the 
rest  of  them.  The  man  who  can  will 


a 

THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE  27 


is  a  factor  in  the  universe.  Only  the 
man  who  can  will  can  serve  the 
Lord  at  all,  and  by  the  same  token, 
hoping  for  no  reward. 

Likewise  is  love  a  factor  in  the 
universe.  Power  is  not  strength  of 
body  or  mind  alone.  One  who  is 
poor  in  all  else  may  be  rich  in  sym- 
pathy and  responsiveness.  "They 
also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait." 

In  the  magazine,  The  Dial,  Mr. 
W.  P.  Reeves  tells  us  the  tale,  half 
humorous,  half  allegorical,  of  the 
decadence  of  a  scholar.  According 
to  this  story,  one  Thomson  was  a 
college  graduate,  full  of  high  notions 


28  THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

of  the  significance  of  life  and  the 
duties  and  privileges  of  the  scholar. 
With  these  ideals  he  went  to  Ger- 
many, that  he  might  strengthen 
them  and  use  them  for  the  benefit 
of  his  fellow-men.  He  spent  some 
years  in  Germany,  filling  his  mind 
with  all  that  German  philosophy 
could  give.  Then  he  came  home,  to 
turn  his  philosophy  into  action.  To 
do  this,  he  sought  a  college  profes- 
sorship. 

This  he  found  it  was  not  easy  to 
secure.  Nobody  cared  for  him  or  his 
message.  The  authority  of  "wise 
and  sober  Germany"  was  not  recog- 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE  29 

nized  in  the  institutions  of  America, 
and  he  found  that  college  professor- 
ships were  no  longer  "  plums  to  be 
picked"  by  whosoever  should  ask 
for  them.  The  reverence  the  German 
professor  commands  is  unknown  in 
America.  In  Germany,  the  author- 
ity of  the  wise  men  is  supreme. 
Their  words,  when  they  speak,  are 
heard  with  reverence  and  attention. 
In  America,  wisdom  is  not  wis- 
dom till  the  common  man  has  ex- 
amined it  and  pronounced  it  to 
be  such.  The  conclusions  of  the 
scholar  are  revised  by  the  daily 
newspaper.  The  readers  of  these 


30  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


papers  care  little  for  messages  from 
Utopia. 

No  college  opened  its  doors  to 
Thomson,  and  he  saw  with  dismay 
that  the  life  before  him  was  one  of 
discomfort  and  insignificance,  his 
ideals  having  no  exchangeable  value 
in  luxuries  or  comforts.  Meanwhile, 
Thomson's  early  associates  seemed 
to  get  on  somehow.  The  world 
wanted  their  cheap  achievements 
though  it  did  not  care  for  him. 

Among  the  associates  was  one 
Wilcox,  who  became  a  politician, 
and,  though  small  in  abilities  and 
poor  in  virtues,  his  influence  among 


THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  31 


men  seemed  unbounded.  The  young 
woman  who  had  felt  an  interest  in 
Thomson's  development,  and  to 
whom  he  had  read  his  rejected  verses 
and  his  uncalled-for  philosophy,  had 
joined  herself  to  the  Philistines,  and 
yielded  to  their  influence.  She  had 
become  Wilcox's  wife.  His  friends 
regarded  Thomson's  failure  as  a  j  oke. 
He  must  not  take  himself  too  seri- 
ously, they  said.  A  man  should  be  in 
touch  with  his  times.  "  Even  Philis- 
tia,"  one  said,  "has  its  aesthetic  ritual 
and  pageantry."  A  wise  man  will  not 
despise  this  ritual,  because  Philistin- 
ism, after  all,  is  the  life  of  the  world. 


32  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


But  Thomson  still  held  out.  "  I 
pledged  my  word  in  Germany,"  he 
said,  "  to  teach  nothing  that  I  did 
not  believe  to  be  true.  I  must  live  up 
to  this  pledge/'  And  so  he  sought 
for  positions,  and  he  failed  to  find 
them.  Finally,  he  had  a  message 
from  a  friend  that  a  professorship  in 
a  certain  institution  was  vacant. 
This  message  said,  "  Cultivate  Wil- 
cox." So,  in  despair,  Thomson  be- 
gan to  cultivate  Wilcox.  He  began  to 
feel  that  Wilcox  was  a  type  of  the 
world,  a  bad  world,  for  which  he 
was  not  responsible.  The  world's 
servant  he  must  be,  if  he  received  his 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE  33 


wages.  When  he  secured  the  cov- 
eted appointment,  through  the  po- 
litical pull  of  Wilcox  and  the  mild 
kindness  of  Mrs.  Wilcox,  he  was 
ready  to  teach  whatever  was  wanted 
of  him,  whether  it  was  truth  in 
Germany  or  not.  He  found  that 
he  could  change  his  notions  of 
truth.  The  Wilcox  idea  was  that 
everything  in  America  is  all  right 
just  as  it  is.  To  this  he  found  it 
easy  to  respond.  His  salary  helped 
him  to  do  so.  And  at  last,  the  rec- 
ord says,  he  became  "  laudator  tern- 
poris  acti"  one  who  praises  the 
times  that  are.  The  times  that  are 


34  THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE 

to  be  demand  a  higher,  virile  type 
of  manliness. 

So  runs  the  allegory.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  story  is  not  true  —  for  no 
university  in  America  nor  anywhere 
else  asks  a  man  to  teach  what  is  not 
true.  The  outside  temptation  to  fall 
short  of  one's  best  is  not  great  with 
the  scholar.  It  is  the  impulse  of 
weakness  inside  against  which  we 
must  guard.  When  you  pass  from 
the  world  of  thought  you  will  find 
yourself  in  the  world  of  action.  The 
conditions  are  not  changed,  but  they 
seem  to  be  changed.  How  shall  you 
respond  to  the  seeming  difference? 


8 

THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  35 


Shall  you  give  up  the  truth  of  high 
thinkingfor  the  appearance  of  speedy 
success  ?  If  you  do  this,  it  will  not  be 
because  you  are  worldly-wise,  but 
because  you  do  not  know  the  world. 
In  your  ignorance  of  your  own 
worth  you  may  sell  yourself  cheaply. 
One  must  know  life  before  he  can 
know  truth.  He  who  will  be  a  leader 
of  men  must  first  have  the  power  to 
lead  himself.  The  world  is  selfish 
and  unsympathetic.  But  it  is  also 
sagacious.  It  rejects  as  worthless 
him  who  suffers  decadence  when  he 
comes  in  contact  with  its  vulgar 
cleverness.  The  natural  man  can 


a 

36  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


look  the  world  in  the  face.  The  true 
man  will  teach  truth  wherever  he 
is,  —  not  because  he  has  pledged 
himself  in  Germany  not  to  teach 
anything  else,  but  because  in  teach- 
ing truth  he  is  teaching  himself. 
His  life  thus  becomes  genuine,  and, 
sooner  or  later,  the  world  will  re- 
spond to  genuineness  in  action.  The 
world  knows  the  value  of  genuine- 
ness, and  it  yields  to  that  force  wher- 
ever it  is  felt.  "The  world  is  all 
gates/'  says  Emerson,  "  all  oppor- 
tunities, strings  of  tension  waiting  to 
be  struck." 

Thus,  in  the  decadence  of  Thorn- 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE  37 

son,  it  was  not  the  times  nor  the  world 
nor  America  that  was  at  fault ;  it  was 
Thomson  himself.  He  had  in  him 
no  life  of  his  own.  His  character, 
like  his  microscope,  "  was  made  in 
Germany,"  and  bore  not  his  mark, 
but  the  stamp  of  the  German  factory. 
Truth  was  not  made  in  Germany ; 
and  to  know  or  to  teach  truth  there 
must  be  a  life  behind  it.  The  deca- 
dence of  Thomson  was  the  appear- 
ance of  the  real  Thomson  from  under 
the  axioms  and  formulae  his  teachers 
had  given  him. 

Men   do   not   fail   because  they 
are  human.  They  are  not  human 


38  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

enough.  Failure  comes  from  lack  of 
life.  Only  the  man  who  has  formed 
opinions  of  his  own  can  have  the 
courage  of  his  convictions.  Learning 
alone  does  not  make  a  man  strong. 
Strength  in  life  will  show  itself  in 
happiness,  will  show  itself  in  sym- 
pathy, in  sacrifice.  "Great  men," 
says  Emerson,  "  feel  that  they  are 
so  by  renouncing  their  selfishness 
and  falling  back  on  what  is  humane. 
They  beat  with  the  pulse  and  breathe 
with  the  lungs  of  nations/' 

It  is  not  enough  to  know  truth ; 
one  must  know  men.  It  is  not 
enough  to  know  men  ;  one  must  be 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE  39 


a  man.  Only  he  who  can  live  truth 
can  know  it.  Only  he  who  can  live 
truth  can  teach  it.  "  He  could  talk 
men  over,"  says  Carlyle  of  Mira- 
beau,  "  he  could  talk  men  over  be- 
cause he  could  act  men  over.  At 
bottom  that  was  it." 

And  at  bottom  this  is  the  source 
of  all  power  and  service.  Not  what 
a  man  knows,  or  what  he  can  say  ; 
but  what  is  he  ?  what  can  he  do  ? 
Not  what  he  can  do  for  his  board 
and  lodging,  as  the  slave  who  is 
"hired  for  life";  but  what  can  he 
do  out  of  the  fullness  of  his  resources, 
the  fullness  of  his  helpfulness,  the 


THE  HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

fullness  of  himself?  The  work  the 
world  will  not  let  die  was  never  paid 
for —  not  in  fame,  not  in  money,  not 
in  power. 

We  hear  much  to-day  of  the  de- 
cadence of  literature,  and  we  heard 
more  ten  years  ago,  before  the  breath 
of  "  the  Strenuous  Life  blew  away 
the  fad  of  the  Drooping  Spirit."  But 
this  decadence,  whatever  it  may  be, 
is  not  due  to  the  decadence  of  man. 
It  is  not  the  effect  of  the  nerve-strain 
of  over-wrought  generations  born 
too  late  in  the  dusk  of  the  ages.  Its 
nature  is  this  —  that  uncritical  and 
untrained  men  have  come  into  a 


8 

THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  41 


heritage  they  have  not  earned.  They 
will  pay  money  to  have  their  feeble 
fancy  tickled.  The  decadence  of  lit- 
erature is  the  struggle  of  mounte- 
banks to  catch  the  public  eye.  There 
is  money  in  the  preparation  of  the 
"  endless  dirges  to  decay,"  else  the 
"sad-eyed  fakirs"  would  be  busy 
with  something  else.  Such  as  these 
have  "  verily  their  reward."  But 
these  performances  are  not  a  man's 
work.  They  have  no  relation  to  lit- 
erature, or  art,  or  human  life.  These 
are  not  in  decadence  because  their 
imitations  are  sold  on  street-corners 
or  tossed  into  our  laps  on  railway 


42  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

trains.  As  well  say  that  gold  is  in  its 
decadence  because  brass  can  be  burn- 
ished to  look  like  it ;  or  that  the  sun 
is  in  his  dotage  because  we  have  filled 
our  gardens  with  Chinese  lanterns. 

u  No  ray  is  dimmed,  no  atom  worn, 
My  oldest  force  is  good  as  new, 
And  the  fresh  rose  on  yonder  thorn 

Gives  back  the  bending  heavens  in  dew." 

Real  literature  has  never  been 
paid  for.  It  has  never  asked  the  gold 
nor  the  plaudits  of  the  multitude. 
Job,  and  Hamlet,  and  Faust,  and 
Lear,  were  never  written  to  fill  the 
pages  of  a  Sunday  newspaper.  John 
Milton  and  John  Bunyan  were  not 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE  43 

publishers'  hacks  ;  nor  were  John 
Hampden,  John  Bright,  or  Samuel 
Adams,  or  for  that  matter  Abraham 
Lincoln  or  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
under  pay  as  walking-delegates  of 
reform. 

No  man  was  hired  to  find  out  that 
the  world  was  round,  or  that  men 
and  lower  animals  have  a  common 
origin,  that  living  organisms  fill  the 
fading  leaf,  or  that  valleys  are  worn 
down  by  water,  or  that  the  stars  are 
suns.  No  man  was  paid  to  burn  at 
the  stake  or  die  on  the  cross  that 
other  men  might  be  free  to  live. 
The  sane,  strong,  brave,  heroic  souls 


44  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

of  all  ages  were  the  men  who,  in 
the  natural  order  of  things,  have 
lived  above  all  considerations  of  pay 
or  glory.  They  have  served  not  as 
slaves  hoping  for  reward,  but  as  gods 
who  would  take  no  reward.  Men 
could  not  reward  Shakespeare,  or 
Darwin,  or  Newton,  or  Helmholtz 
for  their  services  any  more  than  we 
could  pay  the  Lord  for  the  use  of 
His  sunshine.  From  the  same  inex- 
haustible divine  reservoir  it  all  comes 
—  the  service  of  the  great  man  and 
the  sunshine  of  God. 

"Twice  have  I  moulded  an  image, 
And  thrice  outstretched  my  hand ; 


THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE 

Made  one  of  day  and  one  of  night, 
And  one  of  the  salt  sea  strand; 

One  in  a  Judean  manger, 
And  one  by  Avon's  stream ; 

One  over  against  the  mouths  of  Nile, 
And  one  in  the  Academe." 


And  in  such  image  are  men  made 
every  day,  not  only  in  Bethlehem  or 
in  Stratford,  not  alone  on  the  banks 
of  the  Nile  or  the  Arno  ;  but  on  the 
Mississippi,  or  the  Columbia,  or  the 
San  Francisquito,  it  may  be,  as  well. 
All  over  the  earth,  in  this  image, 
are  the  sane  and  the  sound  and  the 
true.  And  when  and  where  their 
lives  are  spent  arise  generations  of 
others  like  them,  men  in  the  true 


46  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

order.  Not  alone  men  in  the  "  image 
of  God,"  but  "gods  in  the  likeness 
of  men." 

It  is  to  the  training  of  the  genu- 
ine man  that  the  universities  of  the 
world  are  devoted.  They  call  for  the 
higher  sacrifice,  the  sacrifice  of  those 
who  have  powers  not  needed  in  the 
common  struggle  of  life,  and  who 
have,  therefore,  something  over  and 
beyond  this  struggle  to  give  to  their 
fellows.  Large  or  small,  whatever 
the  gift  may  be,  the  world  needs 
it  all,  and  to  every  good  gift  the 
world  will  respond  a  thousand-fold. 
Strength  begets  strength,  and  wis- 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

dom  leads  to  wisdom.  "  There  is  al- 
ways room  for  the  man  of  force,  and 
he  makes  room  for  many/'  It  is  the 
strong,  wise,  and  good  of  the  past 
who  have  made  our  lives  possible. 
It  is  the  great  human  men,  the 
"  men  in  the  natural  order,"  that 
have  made  it  possible  for  "  the  plain, 
common  men"  that  make  up  civil- 
ization to  live,  rather  than  merely 
to  vegetate.  Bancroft  Ubra 

We  hear  those  among  us  some- 
times who  complain  of  the  short- 
ness of  life,  the  smallness  of  truth, 
the  limited  stage  on  which  man  is 
forced  to  act.  But  the  men  who  thus 


THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE 

complain  are  not  men  who  have 
filled  this  little  stage  with  their  ac- 
tion. The  man  who  has  learned  to 
serve  the  Lord  never  complains  that 
his  Master  does  not  give  him  enough 
to  do.  The  man  who  helps  his  fel- 
low-men does  not  stand  about  with 
idle  hands  to  find  men  worthy  of 
his  assistance.  He  who  leads  a 
worthy  life  never  vexes  himself  with 
the  question  as  to  whether  life  is 
worth  living. 

We  know  that  all  our  powers  are 
products  of  the  needs  and  duties  of 
our  ancestors.  Wisdom  too  great  to 
be  translated  into  action  is  a  contra- 


THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE  49 

diction  of  words.  For  wisdom  is 
only  knowing  what  one  ought  to  do 
next.  Virtue  is  doing  it.  Virtue  and 
enjoyment  have  never  been  far  apart 
from  each  other.  To  know  and  to 
do  is  the  basis  of  the  highest  ser- 
vice. Those  the  world  has  the  right 
to  honor  are  those  who  have  found 
enough  to  do.  The  fields  are  always 
white  to  their  harvest. 

Alexander  the  Great  had  con- 
quered his  neighbors  in  Greece  and 
Asia  Minor,  the  only  world  he 
knew.  Then  he  sighed  for  more 
worlds  to  conquer.  But  other  worlds 
he  knew  nothing  of  lay  all  about 


50  THE   HIGHER   SACRIFICE 

him.  The  secrets  of  the  rocks  he  had 
never  suspected  ;  the  mystery  of  life 
was  no  more  to  him  than  to  a  jackal. 
Steam,  electricity,  the  growth  of 
trees,  the  marvel  of  human  con- 
sciousness,—  all  these  were  as  noth- 
ing to  him.  The  only  conquest  he 
knew,  the  subjection  of  men's  bod- 
ies, went  but  a  little  way.  All  the 
men  who  in  his  lifetime  had  ever 
even  heard  of  Alexander  the  Great 
could  find  encampment  on  the  Palo 
Alto  farm.  The  great  world  of  men 
in  his  day  was  beyond  his  knowl- 
edge. The  great  actual  Universe  of 
God  lay  about  him  in  majestic  in- 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

visibility.  His  world  was  a  very  small 
one,  and  of  that  he  had  seen  but  a 
little  corner. 

For  the  need  of  more  worlds  to 
conquer  is  not  a  sign  of  strength.  It 
is  the  stamp  of  ignorance.  It  indi- 
cates that  nothing  worth  while  is 
yet  conquered.  No  Lincoln  ever 
sighed  for  more  nations  to  save  ;  no 
Luther  for  more  churches  to  purify ; 
no  Darwin  that  nature  had  not  more 
hidden  secrets  which  he  might  fol- 
low to  their  depths ;  no  Agassiz  that 
the  thoughts  of  God  were  all  ex- 
hausted before  he  was  born. 


52  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 

And  now,  a  final  word  to  you  as 
scholars.  Higher  education  means 
the  higher  sacrifice.  That  you  are 
taught  to  know  is  simply  that  you 
may  do.  Knowing  the  truth  signi- 
fies that  you  should  do  right.  Know- 
ing and  doing  have  value  only  as 
translatedintojusticeandlove.  There 
is  no  man  so  strong  as  not  to  need 
your  help.  There  is  no  man  so  weak 
that  you  cannot  make  him  stronger. 
There  is  none  so  sick  that  you  can- 
not bring  him  to  "the  gate  called 
Beautiful."  There  is  no  evil  in  the 
world  that  you  cannot  help  turn  to 
goodness.  "  We  could  lift  up  this 


THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE  53 

land/'  said  Bjornson  of  Norway, 
"  we  could  lift  up  this  land,  if  we 
lifted  as  one." 

Therefore  lift,  and  lift  as  one.  You 
are  strong  enough  and  wise  enough. 
You  shall  seek  strength  and  wisdom, 
that  others  through  you  maybe  wiser 
and  stronger.  You  shall  seek  your 
place  to  work  as  your  basis  for  help- 
fulness. Others  will  make  the  place 
as  good  as  you  deserve.  If  your  lives 
are  sacrificed  in  helping  men,  it  is 
to  the  market  of  the  ages  you  carry 
your  blood,  not  the  milk-market  of 
Concord  town.  The  honest  man  will 
not  "  pledge  himself  in  Germany  to 


54  THE   HIGHER  SACRIFICE 


teach  nothing  which  is  not  true." 
Being  true  himself,  he  can  teach 
nothing  false.  The  more  men  of  the 
true  order  there  are  in  the  world, 
the  greater  is  the  world's  need  of 
men. 

As  you  are  men,  so  will  your 
places  in  life  be  secure.  Every  pro- 
fession is  calling  you.  Every  walk 
of  life  is  waiting  for  your  effort. 
There  will  always  be  room  for  you, 
and  each  of  you  will  make  room  for 
many. 


is? 


